1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to devices for monitoring or measuring vital signs of patients in a treatment setting, and more particularly to a portable, self-contained device capable of rapidly measuring selected key vital signs of an injured or sick patient in one operation in an emergency or triage setting.
2. Background of the Invention and Description of the Prior Art:
Vital physiological signs that are key measures of the state of health of medical patients, especially in emergency situations include blood pressure and pulse rate, blood oxygen saturation level, and temperature. The measurements of these four parameters provide important indicators of a patient's condition along with the patient's description thereof. Blood pressure, typically measured by a sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope, provides the pressure values when the heart contracts (systolic) and when the heart relaxes (diastolic), a reliable indicator of the health of the blood circulatory system and its condition or state at the time of the measurement. Pulse rate is a measure of the number of times the heart beats per minute.
Blood hemoglobin saturation level, measured non-invasively with a pulse oximeter, is a measure of the proportion of oxygen bound up in the blood hemoglobin. This measurement is an indirect indicator of the oxygenation efficiency of the respiratory system (“respiratory sufficiency”) of a patient. The body temperature of a patient, traditionally measured with a thermometer, indicates whether the ability of the body to eliminate or generate heat to maintain the correct temperature is functioning correctly. Temperature is another primary indicator of the body's condition or state when experiencing injury or illness.
Patients brought into triage in emergency room settings, or requiring assessment of injuries or illness at the scene of an accident or the onset of acute or severe symptoms, need to have their vital signs measured accurately, rapidly, and in some cases repeatedly, to provide an initial assessment of the patient's condition. In most situations, the key vital sign measurements are blood pressure, pulse rate, the saturation of oxygen in the blood (pulse oximetry), and the temperature. Traditionally, these measurements were obtained manually using separate instruments, and usually not all at the same time. Often, the complete vital sign data is not available at the time the physician arrives at the bedside to begin the examination and diagnosis, and to assess the patient's need for treatment. More recently, but typically in patient care areas other than emergency or transport facilities, electronic monitor equipment installed next to the patient's bedside is connected to the patient through cables and wiring for taking continuous measurements and displaying them to the care givers. Such monitoring equipment is unwieldy and limits the ability of the patient to shift position or to be moved. These shortcomings make such monitoring unsuitable in emergency or triage situations where taking vital signs rapidly and with minimum operating inconvenience is crucial to the treatment assessment and delivery required in these situations. This is equally evident if not more so in the pre-hospital care setting. What is needed is a rapid way to measure these vital sign parameters in a single process and to enable such rapid measurements repetitively to establish trend lines, thus facilitating processing of the patient as rapidly as possible into the appropriate care environment.
Another problem with the traditional methods, whether using manual instruments or the conventional bedside monitors, is the lack of the ability to quickly and automatically transmit vital sign data to an electronic medical record (EMR) and to quickly access those patient's records, to facilitate performing a preliminary diagnostic analysis, virtually as soon as the vital signs are obtained. The lack of such information close to the time the vital signs are known could impair the ability to provide the correct initial treatment, and perhaps even mean the difference between life and death of a patient in a severe trauma circumstance. What is needed is a way to report or convey this information to a physician as a complete set of both initial and repetitive data, to enable access to this type of information with minimal delay, and preferably to make the data known at the same time that the vital signs are known.
Of further great functional importance is the ability, typically not readily available, is the listing of all available vital sign data displayed chronologically from the time vital signs were taken pre-hospital through the entire patient journey including the emergency department, surgery, recovery, intensive care unit (ICU), etc. What is needed is a system and suitable device to have vital sign data immediately available to the caregiver at all times, accompanied by the time the data was taken and other pertinent information.